Author: Imprint Events Group

Virtual Meetings + Events: Taking your Teambuilding Online

Imprint Group Teambuilding Service

Digital Events & Taking Teambuilding Virtual

Teambuildings are more important now than ever before as we are constantly being challenged with an ever-changing social, political, and environmental landscape. Read more about the benefits and logistics of taking your teambuildings online from Imprint Operations and Entertainment Producer, Joe Reynolds.

WATCH THE PRESENTATION ON VIRTUAL TEAMBUILDINGS HERE

5 Benefits of Taking your Teambuilding Online

  1. Team engagement in a virtual setting.
  2. Budget-friendly.
  3. Larger reach for companies that have offices throughout the country or globe. 
  4. A nice break from a long day of webinars.
  5. Multiple community give-back opportunities.

Teambuilding activities have been around for as long as we can remember. They are something we have always been engaged in throughout our lives, whether it be a classic ice breaker on the first day of school or summer camp, a cash cab competition, or a supermarket sweep that ends with a giant, live cooking challenge at a concert venue.

(Okay, so maybe we haven’t all done that – but if you’ve engaged the Imprint team for your teambuilding event, chances are, you have.)

Teambuilding activities help us learn how to better communicate, work with others towards a common goal, give back to our communities, and allow us to give in to the rewarding and collaborative feeling that comes along with being a part of a larger team and purpose.

Teambuilding activities go beyond getting your team together for an afternoon of fun challenges or community givebacks.

It pushes your participants out of their comfort zones, making them stretch their capabilities, challenging their understanding of the “norm” and allowing them to bond with their colleagues in these shared experiences.

All these elements are more important now than ever before as we are constantly being challenged with an ever-changing social, political, and environmental landscape. It’s common that your clients and employees are feeling isolated during this time and taking your teambuilding virtual is a wonderful solution to that problem.

Teambuilding activities allow your team to still congregate in a “shared space” while maintaining safe practices for all involved. Whether it is through a virtual cooking class, a fun game night, a scavenger hunt around your house, or an art or music class in your participants’ living rooms.

There are countless ways to engage people in this new virtual landscape – it has simply forced us to challenge the way we have done things in the past. Which, if you ask us, makes it an exciting time for teambuilding.

5 Tips for Virtual Teambuildings

  1. Keep it short and sweet. We recommend nothing longer than 60-90 minutes max. 
  2. Content is King. Keep the content moving and keep it engaging.
  3. Utilize multi-media opportunities whenever they are available.  Pictures, videos, memes, sounds, etc. will help keep your audience’s attention.
  4. Hire a professional Emcee. Someone who is already skilled in keeping people’s attention will give you a huge leg up in keeping your participants engaged.
  5. Rehearse. Rehearsing with your staff, tech, and emcee is a benefit that we do not necessarily get with an in-person activity.

Related: Digital Events 101 Guide & Best Practices for Virtual Meetings

What Makes Virtual Teambuilding Different?

While virtual teambuilding activities share a lot of the same qualities that in-person activities do, there are a few key differences that we must remember in order to have a successful teambuilding.

The biggest and most obvious difference is that your audience is in the comfort of their own home or secluded to their own office. Either way, they are not physically with each other, so it is much easier for them to become disengaged throughout the activity. How do we fix this?

As you have heard many times and will continue to hear, content is king. With your audience not physically together, it becomes even more vital that you have engaging content that is formatted in a digitally digestible way.

This means gone are the days of slides full of data, verbiage, and graphs. Welcome to the digital era where we quite literally need to bring all the bells and whistles in order to keep the audience engaged. Make sure to incorporate videos, music, and imagery throughout your activity in order to grab and keep your audience’s attention. 

Another big difference in the digital world is timing. An average in-person teambuilding activity runs two hours. In a virtual setting, we recommend cutting that by half. This is yet again due to the simple fact that your audience is participating through a screen. After an hour, it is going to becoming increasingly likely that people begin tuning you out. One hour will give you the time you need to engage your guests, get them interacting with each other, and run a few challenges. 

If your client would like a longer or more extensive teambuilding, think about spreading it over a few days. We have concepts that would work great that function over multiple days!

The last difference worth mentioning is team size. While in a normal setting it is very typical to have teams of 8-10 people, that size is just too large in this digital world.  Again, it is going to be more difficult to keep people engaged in this landscape, so having a smaller team will give everyone a chance to participate and be active throughout. Of course, there are activities and options to utilize larger groups, but if possible, a smaller group will lend to more engagement and stronger activity. 

Activity vs Challenge vs Community Giveback

Do you and your client want a teambuilding activity, challenge, or community giveback? This is a hugely important question to ask and truly understand at the beginning of the planning process.

A good understanding of each will allow a more simple and efficient planning process.

Activity – A teambuilding activity can range from a group paint night, skeeball tournament, trivia game, or cooking class. All digitally, of course. There can be some level of competition here, but with an activity, your whole group will be together throughout. There will be no breaking off into smaller groups during an activity.

Challenge – A teambuilding challenge is more involved than an activity. With a challenge, we will take your group, break them into smaller groups, and have some sort of competition component. The group will work together within their smaller teams in order to accomplish a task, complete a challenge, or play a game. All the teams will be competing against each other throughout the challenge and we will crown a winning team at the end of it all.

Community Giveback – A community giveback teambuilding can incorporate either of the above styles. This has become a vital piece of corporate teambuildings over the years and moving to a digital platform only opens up our opportunities for the community giveback teambuilding.

Related Resources:
Adding a Human Touch in a Digital World
Best Practices for Conducting a Virtual Meeting
Taking your Fundraisers Online 

Filed under: Colorado, Florida, Las Vegas, Meetings, Meetings and Events, Multi-day Conference, Nevada, Production, Teambuilding, Virtual Meeting

Virtual Meetings + Events: Taking your Fundraiser Online

Digital meetings are transforming corporate events & meeting landscape globally. How to engage with online audience & increase virtual event participation.

In an effort to adapt to today’s event landscape while also raising funds for hospital workers and frontline staff, we produced a virtual fundraising concert for our longstanding partner, National Jewish Health – the #1 respiratory hospital in the world. Our virtual fundraiser featured national acts and had thousands of people tune in from over 56 countries. Read more about the step-by-step process of hosting a virtual benefit concert online from Imprint Director of Accounts, Franny Starkey.

WATCH THE PRESENTATION ON VIRTUAL FUNDRAISERS HERE

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION SLIDES HERE

I was listening to a webinar with two panelists from major non-profits that serve communities across the country and was particularly struck by a common phrase one of the panelists mentioned was nomenclature in her organization.

She referred to “blue sky” and “gray sky” fundraising. This is the work an organization does year-round to raise dollars when the need isn’t urgent is referred to as “blue sky” and when disaster strikes the organization’s efforts turn to “grey sky” fundraising.

What if your organization’s work can’t solve the grey sky, but you’re still affected by it

How do you ensure your cause is still relevant and therefore your funding flow doesn’t dry up?

Nonprofits and associations are wrestling with this question as benefits, galas, and fundraising events across the country cancel and the nation’s focus turns, rightly, to support our essential workers and organizations helping to respond to the COVID-19 crisis.

While online fundraising has always been a critical aspect of any development plan, pivoting to virtual fundraising events is an imperative new focus for planners.

Virtual Fundraising for Non Profits

Events are a critical tool for nonprofit organizations – they help raise money, yes, but also raise the organization’s profile and bring people together to connect and learn critical information about the state of the foundation

These events become emotional because of the critical need that is being highlighted or the incredible stories that are shared.

How does that emotional pull, that helps to raise the necessary funds from the event, manifest in a virtual setting? 

What are the advantages of hosting a virtual fundraising event?

  • Overhead cost is much lower so profit margin increases. Production for virtual is much less than hosting a physical event.
  • Participation can be expanded – there are no capacity issues online.
  • Benefits for sponsors can be extended through additional marketing and the length of the event’s archival online.
  • Talent and entertainment options are limitless – prerecorded content makes scheduling issues easy! Mobile and online bidding platforms already exist and are in wide use, easy to integrate them into most virtual event platforms.

How can a planner create that all-important human element online and inspire viewers to give:

  • Utilize incredible talent that’s more accessible than ever. National acts and major speakers have significantly reduced their rates for virtual engagements and scheduling issues are easily resolved because content can be prerecorded and presented “live.”
  • Use the time spent on producing the event on personalizing the invitation and messaging throughout.
  • Consider spending some of those saved budget dollars on delivering customized thank you gifts in advance or following the event.
  • Create unifying moments throughout the virtual experience to create a sense of community around your cause. These could be as simple as everyone lighting a candle together at once to everyone delivering a simple message in unison.

YES – virtual fundraising events can work and be meaningful!

Where do you start planning a virtual fundraiser? Here are some important considerations:

  • What digital platform is best for your event?
  • What online bidding platform is best for your chosen event platform?
  • How many viewers do you anticipate?
  • Will you charge to attend or just solicit funds live?
  • What’s included in your program? Keep it to 60 minutes or less.
  • What entertainment is featured? Consider the legality around music streaming online.
  • What interaction from the viewers is important to the event?
  • How can sponsors be highlighted in a virtual setting?

Related Resources:
Adding a Human Touch in a Digital World
Best Practices for Conducting a Virtual Meeting

Filed under: Colorado

Virtual Meetings + Events: Best Practices for Conducting a Virtual Meeting

Digital Meetings 101 for Hosting a Successful Virtual meeting or digital event

In today’s changing landscape, the need to continue business and hold digital meetings is paramount. Read more from Imprint VP of Accounts, Franny Starkey, based on our recent video conference “Digital Meetings 101”.


WATCH THE PRESENTATION ON DIGITAL MEETINGS 101 HERE

DOWNLOAD THE PRESENTATION SLIDES HERE

Develop a Business Strategy for Hosting a Digital Meeting & Improving Virtual Meetings

If you’re looking to hold a virtual meeting or want to improve corporate meetings now taking place online, there are a variety of things to consider as you start to strategize how to accomplish this.

While the technological portion of your meeting is critical, how you structure your online meetings will be vital to the overall success of your digital event.

Here are Suggestions to Help you Facilitate a Successful Online Meeting:

No attendee wants to sit in front of their computer for hours listening to a series of speakers go on and on.  Your meeting agenda must force movement, have the ability for attendees to interact dynamically, and provide content that’s energetic through a dynamic presentation.

Your online content has to have a strong focus. There’s no timeframe you *have* to fill in digital-to-digital conference – however, what you’re offering, and subsequently asking your attendees to spend their time watching, must be critical content that must be shared and shared now.

Bottom Line. Do not waste time, yours and your attendees, with filler content.

A digital meeting gives you more flexibility as you plan, and the online agenda should reflect this. You’re not confined to a certain room on a particular set of days in a set number of hours. As such, one advantage of virtual meetings is your virtual agenda can extend beyond your typical meeting schedule and live online for a set time period so invited guests can interact with the material at their leisure – whether later that day or in one week.

As you Plan Your Virtual Agenda, Here are Key Questions to Consider:

  • What content and information is critical to provide as part of this meeting?
  • What content needs to be shared live?
  • What content requires interaction with attendees (feedback, suggestions, questions, etc.)?
  • How many subtopics (or breakout sessions) are pertinent?
  • Do you want multiple content options simultaneously or would you rather offer a multiple single content experience?
  • Of those subtopics, which require, or would benefit from, attendee interaction?
  • For those subtopics that don’t require live interaction, can that content be prerecorded and produced in advance?
  • How many total attendees are you hoping will tune in?
  • How many attendees do you hope will participate in subtopic sessions or recordings?
  • Do you have the advance time needed to create worthwhile content?
  • Do you have the right partners to help create the content?

Key Suggestions for Optimizing Your Digital Meeting

  • Offer (1-2) daily live “general sessions” where all attendees can join that last NO MORE than 90 minutes – 45-60 minutes is ideal
    • General sessions, unless it’s a set keynote, should include a multitude of speakers.
    • If budget allows, the “set” for the live session should be dynamic and include a multitude of looks to keep the attendee interested and engaged whether that’s through technology (green screen, LED backdrop, multi-stage and camera set up.)
    • Think about how you can plan for dynamic interaction and engage guests.
    • Speakers must be engaging and energetic. They should be coached and presentations should be rehearsed.
    • Communicate “rules of the road” in advance for these massive online gatherings so attendees know what to expect and how to engage.  For instance: attendees are all muted, questions are submitted through a hashtag (or chosen platform), comments are submitted through chat or in a post-meeting survey, etc. 
  • Use Live Breakout Sessions to Interact with Attendees
    • Use live sessions, held in proximity to the general session (but not directly following), to give guests an opportunity to engage through polling, Q&A and conversation.
    • These sessions should have individual agendas, shared in advance, that outline how attendees can interact and when.
    • Limit the number of attendees to these sessions so interaction is meaningful and controlled.  If interest exceeds capacity, host the same session multiple times – again, the benefit of a virtual meeting is giving flexibility with the schedule and providing options for your attendees.
    • Record and post to live on following the live session.
  • Provide Prerecorded and Produced Breakout Content
    • Content that’s useful but not as exciting should be prerecorded and produced so its available but can be observed when the attendee has time or interest.
    • Prerecording and producing also allows you to spice up the content through graphics, animations and b-roll. 
    • Prerecording is a great option for speakers who aren’t great in front of a live crowd or for panels where you’re struggling to get the right speakers on the set day and time.
  • Don’t Forget to Entertain When Hosting a Virtual Meeting
    • In a live meeting, there are moments throughout the experience meant to surprise and delight your attendees, that sentiment can’t be lost when your program goes virtual, in fact, those moments are all the more important.
    • As guests are logging on and joining the meeting, what music or video is playing?
    • As speakers switch or breakouts start or conclude, what do guests hear or see?
    • How can the users’ device (computer or phone) come alive as part of the experience?
  • Help Facilitate Networking During Remote Meetings
    • Similar to live breakout sessions, can you create virtual happy hours grouped by interest, professional role or region?
    • Can sponsors or executives host “booth hours” or a period of time they’re available for virtual chats and pop-ins.

Virtual Meeting: Sample Conference Agenda Template

Need assistance in facilitating an online meeting or building a dynamic virtual meeting for conference attendees? Contact Imprint Group to do the heavy lifting!

Related Resources:
Adding a Human Touch in a Digital World
Taking your Fundraiser Online

Filed under: Creative Branding & Design, Meetings, Meetings and Events, Teambuilding, Virtual MeetingTagged with: , , ,